Chapter 8.5, Problem 14P

Recall from Chapter 3, equation ( 8.5), that a set of functions is linearly independent if their Wronskian is not identically zero. Calculate the Wronskian of each of the following, sets to show that in each case they are linearly independent. For each set, write the differential equation of which they are solutions. Also note that each set of functions is a set of basis functions for a linear vector space (see Chapter 3, Section 14, Example 2) and that the general solution of the differential gives all vectors of the vector space.

$e^{ax},e^{bx},a\ne b$ (a, b, real or complex)